Question and answer deleted: not in P.SE's interest in my opinion

Question

Very recently a question and answer of mine was deleted [closed, Edit.] here:

Cooling of a Uniform Sphere with Convective heat loss at the boundary

The question and answer had been deleted by ACuriousMind alone (but this is not a diatribe against ACM).

I answered my own question in the spirit of this link:

It’s OK to Ask and Answer Your Own Questions

The FAQ has contained one key bit of advice from the very beginning: It’s also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, as long as you pretend you’re on Jeopardy! — phrase it in the form of a question. So … if you have a question that you already know the answer to…

I have applied "Q&A" that way before.

The standard, stated reason for the deletion was:

Homework-like questions and check-my-work questions are considered off-topic here, particularly when asking about specific computations instead of underlying physics concepts. Homework questions can be on-topic when they are useful to a broader audience. If you intend to modify your question, please read the links above carefully before editing. Note that answers with complete solutions may be deleted!

That definition has never sat with me very well because it's highly subjective. There are TONS of questions that make it through that filter, yet can EASILY be considered homework-like. Conversely, my question asked about a specific physics concept, concisely worded. And I provided a complete answer, because providing a partial one seemed silly here. Many of P.SE's posts make it into Google (and other SEs) where partial answers are of little value.

I believe deleting interesting, conceptual questions with correct, well-presented answers to be absurd - Kafkaesque even and contrary to the spirit of physics.stackexchange.

Answer 1

I'd just like to chip in on the general idea and rationale behind closing these types of questions.

As far as I can tell, and correct me if I'm wrong, the overarching reason we close questions on StackExchange is to curb the addition of content that doesn't add value to the site. In other words, the goal is to reduce noise. In the more specific case of homework-like questions on physics.SE, there is also an additional "meta-reason" of discouraging people from seeing the site as a do-my-homework place, which might lead to an increased influx of low-effort questions, thus straining the general efforts of maintaining the quality of the site.

How do these rationales apply to the special case of Q&A-style questions? I'm referring here specifically to posts created for the purpose of sharing knowledge, in which the asker already knows the (or at least a) answer to the question.

I'm aware that some maintain that these questions should not be treated as exceptions, so that, if taking the question in isolation would lead to it being closed for lack of context or such, the fact that an answer was provided with said question should not affect its assessment.

However, I don't see why this should be the case. Why should these types of questions not be treated with different standards? After all, provided the Q&A provides any amount of useful knowledge, how does it not add value to the site?

• The answer being provided with the question makes the context of the question (usually) pretty clear. On a similar note, the question comes with an answer attached. It's an open-and-shut case. It literally does no harm (unless one starts worrying about floods of such posts cluttering the front page... which however isn't going to happen anytime soon).

• I'd argue that a question being very briefly put is, in the case of Q&A posts, even an advantage. If normally the lack of context would make a post harder to parse and answer in a way that reflects what the asker actually meant to ask, in the case of a Q&A this is not an issue. On the other hand, if someone happens to be looking for that piece of information in the future, the brevity of the question only makes it easier to figure out whether the question deals with what they are looking for.

• It does not encourage people posting homework to the site. Sure, it might provide a target for someone looking for homework, but let's be honest the site will already be a primary google search result in this regard. At least Q&A questions are more likely to come with knowledgable answers.

On a similar note, I also don't see the point of deleting a self-answer to a question that was closed as homework. I understand why answers to homework-like questions are deleted, but how does the reason behind that policy apply in the case of self-answered questions?

Of course, there will be exceptions to all this, e.g. if the answer is badly put together or just plain wrong, if the asker is trying to promote personal theories, etc. But this doesn't look to be the case here.